14 year old Tamil girl wins 94th Scripps National Spelling Bee in America

A 14-year-old Tamil girl has won the 94th Scripps National Spelling Bee held in Maryland, America, on Thursday night. Harini Logan from San Antonio, Texas, receives the trophy and a check for $50,000.

Harini went head-to-head with Vikram Raju, 12, in the first ever spell-off, a format that tested the contestants on how many words they could correctly spell within 90 seconds. Harini came out on top with 21 words correctly spelt.

Historically, the competition ends when a speller spells correctly in a one-person, one-word round and is declared champion. However, the officials can choose to activate a spell-off to declare a winner. Each speller remaining in the competition would have 90 seconds to spell as many words as they could from a predetermined spell-off list of words. After all spellers remaining in the competition had competed in the spell-off, the speller who spelled the most words correctly would be declared champion.